Generation Sasquatch

So the other day I was watching a baseball game (what a fucking end to the season it is!) and saw another one of the "Messin' with Sasquatch" commercials. I'm not going to name the product because I feel no need to shill for them, but I do really enjoy the commercials. They make me laugh. Poor goddamn beast.

But then something strange and wonderful happened. I had an epiphany. A fucking commercial gave me an epiphany! I turned to my BF and blurted, "We're not Generation X! We're Generation Sasquatch!"

It's true. Anyone who was a child in the 1970s (yes, I'm old) knows this. The heyday of Bigfoot, D.B. Cooper, the Loch Ness Monster, "In Search Of..."

I feel so nostalgic right now.

By the way -- there's a Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. Yes, really.

Hungry Zombies

There's a new study out that shows people who more often use intuition, rather than "reflective" thinking (logic?), are more likely to be religious. Who's surprised?

On a related note, if the United States were taken over by zombies today, I think the zombies would starve.

That is all.

Carrot Soup

Apparently I am destined to be a food blogger, whether that was my original intention or not. It is what it is, as I am fond of saying. So...cold carrot soup.

I really wish I could find the recipe that inspired this soup, but it's mine now, so fuck it. So here's what I do. I sautee a couple chopped leeks in olive oil, with a bit of fresh-ground pepper and some curry powder. Meantime I prepare two-plus pounds of carrots and a few jalapenos. I throw these into the sautee with just enough water to cover all the veggies. After roughly twenty minutes of simmering (are the carrots soft enough?), I puree the soup, add a cup of orange juice (grapefruit juice might make an interesting alternative), and put the mix in the fridge. Hours later, I will put together some vegan sour cream (soft tofu, rice vinegar, canola oil, and jalapeno peppers) and serve this with the soup and fresh cilantro.

Carrots, curry, and orange juice? I thought it was bizarre too, when I read the recipe. It fucking rocks.

Perspective

Waaay back when we started this blog, I remember thinking that since I have such an active, fertile imagination, I could - if I wanted to - imagine how awful it must be for someone to go through a natural disaster and lose the people they love. Like my hero Bartleby, I preferred not to.

I'd really like my imagination to just take a little break now and again. A couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law, a brash, obnoxious, totally lovable New Yorker hailing from Brooklyn, had surgery to remove a malignant tumor the size of an orange from his lower intestine, and about two feet of colon along with it. You ought to see the scar; it's insane. It starts in the center of his chest, just under the solar plexus, and goes down like a zipper sewn in by a drunken tailor, to just above the happy trail, which is, I gather, not so happy at the moment.

So he had the surgery and the margins were clean and we were all happy and hell, Jimmy's going back to work in two weeks! Everything's back to normal.

Except it's not. Nowhere close.

He has two spots on his liver. At first They couldn't identify them - then decided it was cancer, and started him on either radiation or chemo immediately. Don't know which - this is all being filtered through my husband, who is less concerned with details and more concerned about his sister, who was, as of last night, officially freaking out.

Once They saw the two spots, the next question became whether it was liver cancer, or colon cancer that had spread to the liver. And then They had to figure out how far it had spread.

So off my brother- and sister-in-law went to the oncologist yesterday, to have a look at the results.

I don't know what they were, specifically. My father-in-law's text last night was highly melodramatic and I won't repeat it because it doesn't do any good to say something like that about a fifty-year-old man with two young daughters and a family history of fast-growing terminal cancer.

What I do know is that they're putting him on hard-core chemo for two weeks, then operating again. On his liver.

Goddamn it.

I understand how people turn to God in times like these - really, I do. Because that way, you at least feel like you can do something useful - you can pray. At the moment, I don't feel like I can do anything at all. Not for Jimmy, not for Christie, not for their daughters Addison and Cadyn. And I don't know what to do for Brian, who has known Jimmy since adolescence and is spending a lot of time in the backyard in the evenings, talking on the phone with his father, and drinking.

Maybe we can get an increase on our credit limit. That way, if we need to get there quickly, we can. I can't think of anything else to do. Tearing my hair out and screaming at the top of my lungs at this brutal injustice will do nothing but wreck my vocal cords.

See, when Brian and I are faced with something bad - like surgery on the cat or the dog, like impending foreclosure, like being too broke to afford child care - one of us is always able to say, "It's okay, honey. Everything's going to be all right."

But that's in the blue sky period, when nothing's certain, when the vet can still save a leg or a paw, when the fight with the mortgage company isn't over quite yet, when the biopsy hasn't come back from the doctor and it's probably nothing to worry about anyway. It's scary to think that compared to what my sister-in-law and her husband are going through right now, at this very moment, those things are a walk in the fucking park.

I came into work this morning and one of my co-workers was bitching as he usually does about something or other, it was all I could do not to offer him a big, heaping plate of Shut The Fuck Up. "Harry," I wanted to say, "you're reasonably healthy, although God knows you could drop dead of a heart attack at any second. Any of us could. Your daughter is grown up and healthy. You have a job, and you're fit enough to do it. You own your own goddamned house. So get some perspective and shut the fuck up."

I wish I could say to my husband that everything's going to be all right. But I can't. I wouldn't believe it, and neither would he.

Morning Sun

I've been seeing a lot of sunrises over the past few months. Okay, not sunrises exactly, but early morning sun. For those who know me, that probably comes as a surprise. It goes like this...

Every year when I Amtrak back to New England, I have to readjust my schedule to that of a house with two small children -- no quiet late nights, and luxuriating in bed till ten a.m. I don't mind; I get to spend all the hours of the day with my sister and her family. Quiet reading time is still a must, so I snuggle in "Kiki's Room" with a book at night, switching off the light at midnight or so, and then my basic-five-years-ago cell phone rings annoyingly around seven, reminding me to get up, shove contacts into my swollen eyes, grab some coffee, and settle down on the couch with J and V and R for "Curious George" while we let my sister sleep in.

Early summer mornings have been the rule for seven years now, and I've discovered a small -- very small -- taste for the weak lemon light at the start of the day, and the odd feeling that I might actually get multiple things done before it's even noon. (A trip to the beach! Or maybe just the local market, library, and sundry errands, but still!)

And then every year when I return to New Mexico, it takes me a few weeks to get back to my normal schedule -- a few bizarre weeks of snapping awake in the dark at five a.m., perhaps even wondering where I am (and who the fuck is that naked man beside me?). A funny thing happened this year after my return, though. I kept getting up early.

I don't know why. I mean, it's partly on purpose; a job hovers in the near-future. But despite having been a night owl my whole life, I'm actually enjoying the mornings. The New Mexico summer sun isn't like New England's, obviously -- it's white-hot and bright from the second it rises over the Organ Mountains. But early morning has a quiet and peace that's not unlike late nights.

I miss the silent vampire dark. But sitting here with my coffee, listening to the chatter of birds, watching my cats prowl around the east-facing porch, I feel almost as if my sister is inside, in the kitchen, pouring her own coffee and getting ready to share another beautiful New England day with me. So close even though she's so far...that makes it totally worthwhile.

Triple Thai Hot

I feel kind of silly, posting about food again -- this isn't a food blog -- but so be it. It's a funny story, anyway.

So my totally fab friend Kate was in town for the weekend, and we decided to have an early Saturday lunch at one of our local Thai restaurants. I ordered the vegetarian version of Thai Basil and (not for the first time) had to reassure the waitress that yes, I really really really wanted it Thai hot. As a very fair-skinned person, I'm not unfamiliar with having to convince waitstaff that I'm certain about wanting a high spice level, but that almost never happens in southern New Mexico. Out here, spice is a given. But anyway, this lady wanted reassurance; I gave it; I thought that was it.

But no. Kate piped up. "She wants it crazy hot! That's what she likes! Trust me!"

The waitress paused. "You want double Thai hot? Triple?"

I was in ecstasy at the very concept. "You do triple? Yes, please! That!"

And so it went, and eventually they wanted me to go to the kitchen to reassure the chef himself. Which I did, and then they took a picture of me eating (heavenly -- the food, not the picture), and another picture of me and the chef.

Is there a moral to this story? Wait -- you thought I dealt in fucking morals? No. The point is -- you never know you can get triple Thai hot unless you ask. Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Thai Delight. Bring on the chiles!

Kale Crisps

While we're sharing recipes, here's one I just tried that is really surprisingly good. It requires kale, olive oil, and salt. Break up kale into bite sized pieces. Wash, dry. On a cookie sheet, drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 10 - 15 minutes. Super crispy yummy yum yum!! And of course super healthy, vegan, gluten free too!

Crazy Soup

No, not my brain, silly. It's another scorching summer day in southern New Mexico, so I decided to get cooking out of the way early, before my kitchen hits ninety degrees (one of the swamp coolers is out, but the pool is finally up and running, WOO HOO). I made a variation of one of my favorite soups. I'm a soup goddess -- I cook a lot, mostly vegan, but soups are where my creativity really comes out, and most of what I make is wholly invented from my own perfervid brain.

For this soup, which is kind of Asian and kind of southern and has no name, I start by cubing a block of extra firm tofu and stir-frying it in canola oil, Sriracha, and soy sauce. When the tofu starts to brown, I add a chopped white onion, the chopped stalks of a bunch of red Swiss chard, and some crushed red pepper. When this mixture starts to smell really good, I add water, the torn Swiss chard leaves, a bunch of chopped carrots, some minced jalapeno, a couple vegetarian bouillon cubes, cover it, and let it simmer for fifteen or twenty minutes. I serve it over a mix of brown and wild rice, with lots of extra Sriracha.

According to an online recipe calculator, this soup is incredibly fucking healthy. More importantly, it tastes great. I like to blow my mind with hot sauce, but I also appreciate the deep flavor of the Swiss chard, or any other type of greens. People tend to think of greens as a southern food, but I grew up with all types of greens in the northeast, and I crave them. It pisses me off that you rarely see a greens recipe that calls for any use of the stalks; they're usually discarded. I love their texture and flavor, and never throw them away.

So try my soup. And don't leave out the Sriracha and jalapenos, you pussies.

New Zealand Sangria

Yeah, I haven't posted in forever. Expecting any commentary on that? Fuck you.

Haha.

Last night was the MLB All Star Game. I watched with the BF and a good friend. We drank New Zealand Sangria with some added vodka (does that explain my fuzzy head this morning? Why yes, it does). It wasn't a great game, and the AL lost, but it was a really fun night. New Mexico, like much of the southwest and deep south, has been in terrible drought conditions for a while now, and we all cheered as the thunderstorms moved in. Terrifying, persistent lightning rent the sky and lit the thirsty desert; rain fell off and on for several hours. My hair curled up a couple inches shorter and got correspondingly wider and higher. It was fucking awesome.

I just got back from Maine, an earlier trip than usual, and while I'm happy to have gone, I'm also glad to be here during monsoon season for a change. There is nothing like rain in the desert, the cool wet wind when days have been over a hundred degrees and heated like an oven, the scent of creosote suddenly permeating everything. I scream with pleasure for nights like that.

So. Scattered. But I'm back.